The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has described roads as depreciable assets that must be maintained in order to preserve their value.
The minister made the clarification at the celebration of the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency 20th anniversary held recently in Abuja.
The former Lagos governor revealed that road construction is a life-impacting asset that should not be toyed with, noting that from the day any road is opened to motorists, the lifespan and asset value of that road begin to degenerate.
He said, “The experts will tell you that after the design and construction of roads, all of which employ less than 40 per cent of the workforce, it is maintenance and operation that create jobs for a good number of people.
“So, from the day when you start to drive on the road, the asset value of that road begins to go down and therefore you are already generating a maintenance need and this is perhaps the way it should be and this takes us to the larger issue of the need for maintenance in the construction industry.”
Speaking further, he disclosed that maintenance and operation create high numbers and lasting jobs for citizens adding that the ministry is undertaking maintenance in 24 federal secretariat complexes across the country.